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I view flow from a couple of view points. Flow to me seems to include a lack of internal conflict with mind and body to the point of a no-mind zen like concept. This to me is like his Number 3. It also goes to the concept of what I like to refer to as the unconsciously competent realm. In other words, it happens so easily within oneself that to understand the flow you have to sit down and analyze it to actually realize what is taking place. This realm covers many of his other numbers in the sense that they are components of the unconsciously competent category.

Wow! gee...that is a tall order. That is allot to happen and I don't know if mentally I could i.d. all that at anytime while in motion. I guess for me it is one of those things, either it happens or it doesn't. The process of i.d.ing flow is first the conscious stuff that goes through my mind of that doesn't feel right. Knowing there is and isn't friction or hinderance when there should or shouldn't be. I translate or receive the subconscious monitoring information in terms far less technically intellectual.

Because if I where to process that subconscious information stuff on a highly intellectual communication I think for one it would a hinderance in its self if one part of my brain wants to get important info fast to another part of my brain which isn't responsible for upper-level brain functions that deal with high level intellectual processes. The higher brain would dumb it down to the other brain so that the information is process quickly so the body can make adjustments. Otherwise, I am afraid, it would be a waste, thus I would probably sit down then and think about it, instead of keep moving and adjusting to get the right feel for flowing.

Over intellectualizing is I feel some times an Aikido occupational hazard. I don't know what O'Sensei's i.q. was, but certainly his teacher Takeda was said to be illiterate, uneducated. Not saying Takeda wasn't intelligent but rather he wasn't an intellectual scholar. I don't if O'Sensei was considered one either. Point being is the less we take Aikido to the books and instead to the mat it may work better. If my flow is off, I my body will feel it, not my higher brain functions- it get it after the fact.

Don't know how valid that was. I am not a specialist in the human body. Nor am I an intellectual scholar, for that matter. Just some guy whose kitten keeps climbing across his key board looking for attention. Kittens purr so cute. It's late, but that is my view it is fun to analyze and intellectualize, though your body really has to feel it- that process of mind and body unity.

I guess it fits on subconscious level but not in the forefront of my awareness. If it did I would go down like a new born colt trying to stand. To our credit I think humans are the other creature on earth that intellecualize as we do, to the good and the bad. That is after we learn to walk.

8 The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

Absolutely. The joy of riding the flow.

9 People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

Yes, that's what it feels like, in the process of it. But the awareness is actually expanded. So much more is learned than what meets the eye. It is important not to consciously narrow down one's awareness, or this expansion will not happen.

The above pretty much define why I train. I'm too ADD to meditate, but the modest technical requirements, the surmountable challenge, the intrinsic pleasure of training...that's what it's all about for me.

Quote:

What changes might you put into your aikido practice to have more of each of the above?-- Jun

I take Saito and Saotome as opposite ends of a teaching spectrum--step-by-step in the case of Saito, all intuition in the case of Saotome. Both work for advancing this feeling.

FWIW, I think Flow in Sports: The keys to optimal experiences and performances by Susan A. Jackson (Author), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Author) is far more useful (as regards training, anyway) to the martial artist today than the Takuan/Yagyu dialog (still quite good, nevertheless, for understanding how spirituality might be linked with a seeming antithesis, martial art).